Facts About Wolfbats
by ebonyquill
Summary: Wolfbats are territorial: ask any girl who's been with Tahno. They're dangerous in a group: ask any of Tahno's opponents. Yet their only fears are badgermoles and fire, and Tahno meets a girl who embodies both. Sometimes, Tahno really is a wolfbat.


**facts about wolfbats  
**_ebonyquill  
_

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**v. Wolfbats are a species of animals native to caves of the Earth Kingdom, particularly the Cave of Two Lovers.**

He was eight when his mother told him the story. He was pressed into the dewy texture of the grass, listening to the stillness of the swamp water, looking up at the hazy grey clouds that mirrored the shade of his mother's kind eyes. Yes, he remembered his mother's storytelling voice — lighter than a drop of rain, more euphonious than a waterfall. His mother's words almost cradled him into a slumber as she talked about Oma and Shu, the first Earthbenders. But he snottily turned his head away from her.

"I don't care about Earthbenders," he said, grabbing a handful of stagnant water from the nearby lake. He let his favorite element fall through his fingers as he pretended to gag, his slight body curving into an exaggerated heave. "Or listen to a _love_ story."

"Did I mention the wolfbats?" His mother merely smiled and gently pushed his bangs out of his face.

Tahno's young, inquisitive eyes widened as he shook his head. He moved to his mother's side, resting his head on her shoulder, as she told him all about the frightening Wolfbats who screeched along the perimeter of the cave. The ghost of a smile played at Tahno's lips as he thought about the wolfbats terrorizing the two lovers with their sharp menacing teeth.

**iv. Territorial by nature, wolfbats only leave their normal habitat at night.**

"Teeth," Tahno hissed as he pulled away from the sordid kiss. He licked his lower lip, outlining the shape of a future bruise. The girl pulled away from him, a smirk on her face.

"Sorry," she cooed, but by the tone of her voice, Tahno was certain that she wasn't apologetic at all. He cupped her cheek and pulled her close, tauntingly baring his own teeth — _I'll make you sorry_ — before he crushed his lips against hers.

Underneath the smokiness of the city sky, Tahno's hands slid up the girl's dress. The only light in the alleyway was the moon's faint glow, dim enough to veil their rhythmic movements. Tahno gripped the girl's thigh with one hand, clasped the contour of her breast with the other. The girl gasped, her voice was gravelly and low. "Tahno, I'm seeing someone now."

Tahno promptly covered her sigh with another kiss — softer, lighter, but unapologetic. "Don't be silly. You're mine," he whispered into her ear and she laughed softly as she laced her fingers at the back of his neck.

**iii. They tend to congregate in large groups, making them even more dangerous.**

He leaned the back of his neck into his palm. The pain shooting through his body was abbreviated by short spouts of numb elation. After a laborious audition period, Tahno had finally found two people who weren't decimated by a mere flick of his wrist. In fact, they had put up quite a fight — at least, that's what his new bruises and aches told him. He had found the two benders who were going to complete his Pro-bending team. He had found his Wolfbats.

Tahno was certain that he could defeat every single team on the Pro-bending roster by himself, but it was against the rules. In the arena, Ming and Shaozu were mere distractions for opposing teams — shifting the earth so Tahno could get a clearer shot, shooting spurts of fire so Tahno could strike a deafening blow. His teammates weren't bothered by the situation at all, in fact, they were thrilled to even be training with Tahno — the face splayed across the newspapers, the voice in more than a dozen radio soundbites.

But out of the arena, when the former boyfriends of some of Tahno's _admirers_ interrupted their first post-match meal at Narook's, Ming did not hesitate to reduce nearby stones into menacing shards resembling daggers and, without a second thought, Shaozu flattened the back of his hand onto the table, igniting dancing flames right above his open palm. In addition to the water whip resting between Tahno's fingers, jilted lovers — and everyone else in the city, for that matter — soon learned that no one could clash with the Wolfbats — on or off the field.

The next day, Tahno — eased by the demonstration of his teammates' skill, but more importantly, their loyalty — lightly noted that it would be advantageous if they started merging their bending skills into more balanced offensive attacks. Tahno only let their shock settle for a moment — _had Tahno gone insane? was he really going to share the spotlight?_ — before he sent sobering blasts of water towards their fallen jaws.

**ii. Their only predator is the gigantic badgermole, but they are also frightened by fire.**

Tahno was almost certain that his jaw was about to detach itself from the rest of his face. He pretended that the Southern Water Tribe girl didn't scare him. But she was everything that he was frightened of — she bent earth with the effortlessness of a badgermole, she exhaled fire like it was the only thing that she could breathe.

He had heard about the Avatar joining the league and he'd heard about the buildings she'd literally brought down, but it was a completely different experience seeing her. He had accidentally walked into the arena during a Fire Ferrets practice and he had planned to depart as soon as he arrived, but he was mesmerized by the fluidity of her movements, the way her happiness seeped through every pore in her body. In the dim arena, with those street vagrants Bolin and Mako, she bent elements with ease, a careless smile on her face, an unintentionally brilliant sheen in her blue eyes.

_There's no way they'll beat us in the finals,_ he thought, in a failed attempt to ease his doubt.

When he spied on the Fire Ferrets later in the week, after he'd had a less-than-pleasant first meeting with the Avatar, he told himself the same thing. And he repeated the mantra once more after the Avatar sent swords of fire, daggers of rocks, and sickles of ice through photographs of his face.

**i. Seventy years after the Hundred Year War, a pro-bending team named itself the White Falls Wolfbats.**

His face dripped with sweat as he turned in his bed for the millionth time — his sheets were wrinkled, his pillow was slack with sweat. He couldn't sleep now, not when his dreams were filled with large wolfbats flying at his face with their bared teeth and their piercing shrieks.

"Am I still a Wolfbat?" Tahno asked quietly. He was content to sit in the silence of his apartment, to contemplate on what he was and what he wasn't, to dwell on things that could have been.

But when he felt the warmth of the Avatar's body pressed against his, his heart eased as he rested his head atop hers. After all their (watery) grave misunderstandings and heated fights (blood _was_ thicker than water), he was still shocked that they somehow found solace in one another. (But that didn't stop him from tiptoeing around the unspoken questions and unwanted answers like thin ice - _how are we going to tell everyone? will we still be together when we tell them?_ - because he was still paralyzed by the thought of losing her.)

"Did I ever tell you the story about the wolfbats?" He brushed a hair out of her face — her nose scrunched up with exhaustion and slight annoyance. She shook her head and slunk her arms around his waist as she burrowed her head into his shoulder — she was too tired to sarcastically reject him with a snarky comment, but the tone of his voice told her that he wouldn't have appreciated it anyway.

Tahno was twenty-four when he told Korra the story. She was pressed into his sheets (and his chest), half-listening to the white noise of the city, peeking up at the drab greyness of his ceiling that mirrored his mute, sad eyes. Yes, she would remember the tone of his voice — heavier than the sensation of sinking, coarser than the deluge of a hurricane. His words cradled him — waves of nostalgia pulled him back to a simpler time as he talked about Oma and Shu, the most famous lovers in history. Korra turned her head towards him, placing a supple kiss on his mouth.

"I thought you hated love stories," she murmured against his lips.

He smiled against the soft skin of her upper lip - nowhere close to his retired smirk of condescension, but not far from the careless grin of his youth. "They're not so bad when they include wolfbats."

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_Disclaimer_: Bryke and Nickelodeon own it. I own... my laptop?  
_Author's Note_: Woo, here's another Tahno fanfic in a series that I like to call, "Alison is procrastinating!" There's no Korra this week so I'm just going to drown in lovely Tahno/Korra fanfics and fanart. Good? Good. Thank you for reading! Check out my writing tumblr (**alisonwritingbadly**) if you didn't hate this and you have nothing better to do to fill your Korra-less time! Any general feedback would be lovely. Flameo, hotmen (and hotwomen)!


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